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“Angels’s a vampire?” Willow asked and the disbelief pretty much sums up how Xander feels about it, falling in step with them, his lips curling into a frown. Oh man, he did NOT see that coming. Didn’t like the guy - well, didn’t like what he heard about him - sure, but wasn’t on the side of guessing that tall, dark, and cryptic came with a side of fangs. “I can’t believe this is happening.” Buffy murmured. “One minute we were kissing and the next minute… Can a vampire ever be a good person? Couldn’t it happen?” That question almost stops Xander right in his tracks. It’s a good thing no one’s looking at him, or they might’ve actually seen him almost tripping over his own feet. ‘Can a vampire be a good person?’Is Buffy thinking clearly or did she suffer a serious head trauma after battling the three - because Xander is pretty sure that she was the one who told HIM that vampires are vile, evil, bloodsucking nasties that can only offer carnage and death. No good in them. No soul. Nothing. How can she even be asking this? And he shoots a glance at Giles. Waiting for him to tell her - tell her what he told Xander, that night outside of the Bronze. Angel is dead and Buffy isn’t looking at the man, she’s looking at the thing that killed him. That was the rule, right? “A vampire isn't a person at all,” Giles says, clearing his throat. Not letting Xander down, but still speaking much more gently than he had before. “It may have the movements, the, the memories, even the personality of the person that it took over, but i-it's still a demon at the core, there is no halfway.” “So that'd be a no, huh?” Willow asked, giving Buffy a sympathetic look and Xander starts breathing again. Rules haven’t changed. Good. “Well, then what was he doing? Why was he good to me? Was it all some part of the Master's plan? It doesn't make sense!”They stop at a bench. Buffy flops down, and Willow sits beside her. To hold her hands. To be supportive. Xander shuffles his feet. “Alright, uh…” He says, sitting down too. If Willow’s taking the supportive route, then he’ll try for the talking logical. Stranger things have happened. “...You have a problem and it’s not a small one. Let’s take a breath and look at this calmly and objectively. Angel’s a vampire. You’re a Slayer. I think it’s obvious what you have to do.” He smiles like that somehow softens the blow, but Buffy doesn’t even react to him. And he knows this is hard. He’s been here… and he knows how the story ends because he’s already lived it. But he’s out of his emotional depth so he looks to Giles, who crouches down to Buffy’s eye-level.“Uh, it is a Slayer’s duty…” Okay, so G-man isn’t opting for a new angle, just repeating Xander’s. Cool. Okay, take two and this time really mean it. “I-I know you have feelings for this guy, but it's not like you're in love with him, right?” He points out. He doesn't know if that helps, but a selfish part of him thinks it must. He loved Jesse and he still killed him. At least Buffy doesn’t really know this guy. Except, Buffy doesn’t answer. She just looks away, a guilty expression on her face, and Xander blinks, rapidly. Hang on just a second. Love? That’s what she’s not saying? That she’s in love with this guy? She doesn’t even know him! What does he do? Show up, give a cryptic warning, and disappear again for weeks at a time? How can she be… “You're in love with a vampire?! What, are you outta your mind?!” Xander demands, horrified and speaking maybe just a little too loudly.“What?!” Cordelia Chase calls, turning from where she’d been looking and pointing herself in his direction. Uh-oh. Think fast, Xander. “Not vampire...How could you love an umpire? Everyone hates 'em!” He says, desperately, to Buffy. But Cordelia’s not even looking at him, really, just focused on some girl who’s wearing the same dress as her. She starts ranting and raving and Xander breathes a sigh of relief while Buffy starts to show signs of life again, shaking her head.“You think WE have problems…”Xander’s still quietly at a loss when they retreat to the library for research mode - being a scooby involves more homework than being a high-school student, and Xander’s only pretending to read the book in front of him, too tired to struggle through it, and too...confused by Buffy’s not-declaration. Love? How can she be…Giles appears, startling him.“Can you please warn us before you do that?” Xander asks, aggravated, but he’s ignored.“There's nothing about Angel in the texts, but it suddenly occurred to me that it's been ages since I've read the diaries of any of the watchers before me.”Willow turned to Buffy, distracted. “That musta been so embarrassing, when you thought he read your diary, but then it turned out he hadn’t, but then he felt the same way…”Xander shoots Willow a look, aggravated. Bad memory lane to start down. Time to start down someone else’s memories of what Angel is ACTUALLY like. And Wills has the grace to look ashamed. “I’m listening.” She promises.“There's mention some two hundred years ago in Ireland of, of Angelus, the one with the angelic face.” Giles continued, looking up to see if that sparked some awareness in Buffy, who only nodded.“They got that right.”Is that before or after the fangs come out? Xander wants to ask, but, “I’m not saying anything, I have nothing to say.” “Does this, uh, Angel have, um, a tattoo behind his right shoulder?”“Yeah, it's a, it's a bird or something.”Xander blinks. Rapidly. The hits just keep on coming. “Now I’m sayin’ something. You saw him NAKED?”He’s completely ignored. Again. Talking to no one, apparently.“So, Angel's been around for a while?” Willow asks. And, of course, she’s heard and acknowledged.“Not long for a vampire. Uh, two hundred and forty years or so.” “Huh! Two hundred and forty. Well, he said he was older.” Giles sits down beside them, flipping through the diary, and Xander waits. On edge. C’mon, give them the gory details. Okay, on second thought, looking at Buffy, give them the P.G thirteen rated details. Enough to spook her, without… well, hurting her. Vampires are bad. They can’t just forget that.“Angelus leaves Ireland, uh, wreaks havoc in, in Europe for, uh, several decades, and then, um, about eighty years ago, the most curious thing happens. He, he comes to, uh, to America, um, shuns other vampires, and, and lives alone. There's, there's no, no record of him hunting here.”“So he IS a good vampire!” Willow exclaims, before suddenly remembering that Giles did say he was wreaking havoc at one point. “I mean, on a scale of one to ten. Ten being someone who’s killing and maiming every night and one being someone who’s...not.” Except, Giles already said that vampires can’t be good. Look at the Master. Look at his cronies. Look at the three fanged fuckheads who tried to kill Buffy just a night or two ago. Vampires are bad. This is like, elementary school stuff. Slayer one-oh-one. Why do the rules change just cause Buff thinks Angel is a hottie? That’s a mean thought, but he’s clenching his hands so hard that his knuckles turn white and already biting his tongue so hard that it’s bleeding, trying not to scream, “Hey, remember when my bestest buddy in the whole wide world got all undead-ed and you guys told me that vampires are always evil with a capital “E”?” so he lets the mean thoughts slide, as long as they stay in his head.“I say that there's no record, but, uh, vampires hunt and kill. It's, it's what they do.”Giles for the win again. Xander nods in agreement. “Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly.”“He could've fed on me. He didn't.” Buffy pointed out.Why is she arguing so hard for this? For someone she barely knows - for someone like /him/. For SOMETHING like him? “Question: a hundred years or so before he came to our shores, what was he like then?” Xander asks since no one else will. “Uh, like all of them. Uh, a vicious, violent animal.”Xander’s thinking back to what Giles said, about vampires being vicious, violent animals… and he’s thinking that Angel hasn’t changed much from that, because here they are. Standing in a hospital, with Buffy’s mom all taped up in a bed and Buffy looking drawn and upset. “She’s gonna be okay,” Buffy says when they’ve stepped out into the hall, away from Joyce, to let her rest. “They, they gave her some iron… Her, uh, blood count was a, a little..” She trails off, grief and horror and anger swirling in her eyes and Xander is suddenly glad that he’s not that vampire. “...a little low. It presents itself like mild anemia. Uh, you, you were, uh, lucky you got to her as soon as you did.” Giles continues, trying to console, but it’s the wrong thing to say. Buffy’s eyes flash.“Lucky? Stupid.”“Buff, it's not your fault,” Xander says, automatically. There’s blame that should be passed, but not to Buffy. She needs to direct it at the guy who really deserves it - ANGEL.“No? I invited him into my home. Even after I knew who he was, what he was, and I didn't do anything about it... 'cause I had feelings for him, because I cared about him.”Willow shakes her head. “If you care about somebody you care about them. You can't change that by…”“...killing them? Maybe not. But I think it's a start.” Buffy says, grimly, turning on her heel and stalking away. Xander watched her go, his gaze flicking nervously to the room where Joyce still is.“Uh, we’ll keep an eye on your mom.”“We have a problem,” Giles says. And Xander agrees. He really, really agrees. And in his mind’s eye, he sees Jesse. And he sees Buffy’s mom. And then, the sees her. The mystery blonde - the girl in the Catholic School geddup that lured Jesse away, the monster that took him. The monster that’s setting her sights on Buffy, now. He doesn’t know if Angel’s working with her, or alone, or what. But he does know that there are too many monsters in Sunnydale.And that if he sees Blondie, he’ll take her out himself.He owes that to Jesse.Gunshots. They’re outside of the Bronze, hunting for Buffy, and Xander hears the sound. He whips his head in that direction and then looks back at Giles and Willow, eyebrows drawn together and lips pursed. Confused. “Did you just hear…” And they’re off. Running to find a way in. Just like last time. It’s easier, this time, no army to prevent them, but it’s also worse. Because Buffy’s already in there, because they heard gunshots, because -“So many body parts, so few bullets. Let's begin with the kneecaps. No fun dancing without them.” Darla declares, firing off a few more rounds. The pool table that Buffy’s ducked behind takes a few hits and Buffy pops up a moment later, uninjured, and firing a shot at Darla. The bolt hits her in the abdomen and she doubles over, but it’s not enough. She straightens up and laughs. Xander hates the sound. “Close, but no heart.” She grabs the bolt, pulls it out and tosses it aside. Xander, Giles, and Willow are crawling across the floor like a really inept army, and Xander moans with desperation. “We need to distract her! Fast!” “Buffy!” Willow cried, over the sounds of fighting. “It wasn’t Angel who attacked your mom, it was Darla!”Great distraction… except that when Darla turns toward the voice, she starts firing at them. They drop down as low as they can for cover, and Xander can’t see anything but floor for a while, too many bullets ringing out, glass shattering, Buffy’s grunts, and huffs as she fights - thank god there’s no cries of pain or victorious vampiress laughter - and then Giles is up on his feet and Xander sits up, too, watching as G-man messes with the lighting. Genius! The strobes come on and distract Darla. Buffy takes her chance, but Darla sees her. She’s too fast. Too strong. Do they even stand a -“C’mon Buffy, take it like a man!”There’s a roar. A genuine roar, like the sound a lion would make, and Angel is suddenly behind Darla with the dart in hand. He plunges it into her back, through her heart, and Darla lets out a shriek. She turns her head and stares at him, disbelief in her expression.Jesse wore that same expression.“Angel?” She falls to the floor and there’s only ash.Xander should be happy. But he’s not. He should be really sick of the Bronze, too, but here they are. Again. Sitting at their table. He wonders if they’d be coming back to this place if there was anywhere else to go in Sunnydale - if he had other options, would he have ever been able to stomach this place again after what happened to Jesse? After what almost happened to Buffy? Those are the thoughts that made his stomach bitter and take most of the energy out of his every attempt to start and carry a conversation. “Ah, the post-fumigation party,” Xander says, finally, because Buffy’s still in la-la-land and Willow seems to be trying to get tickets to visit there with her. “Okay, so what's the difference between this and the pre-fumigation party?” Buffy asks, wryly, at least giving Xander a /chance/ to bring something else to mind. That’s good. A chance is good. He goes for his best joke.“Much hardier cockroaches.”No laugh. Not even a titter. And Willow found her ticket to La-La-Land and immediately says, “So, no word from Angel?” God, is this the way it’s going to be from now on? Every conversation they have circles back to that creep? So, gee, he wasn’t the one who attacked Buffy’s mom. He was sure happy to take the credit, to toy with Buffy’s emotions, for an end-game that Buffy seemed to get but that Xander still wasn’t sure of. “Nah. It's weird, though. In this way, I feel like he's still watching me.”Super. Stalking is the most romantic form of - oh, come on.Willow sees what Xander does but her face lights up. “Well, in a way he sort of is. In the way of that, he's right over there.”Buffy looks over where Willow is looking and sees Angel. Standing there, sticking out like an undead thumb. Buffy briefly looks back at Willow, a little smile on her lips, and then she’s off. Dashing over to tall, dark, and deadly like it’s nothing. Willow glances at him and he can see the concern in her eyes. Waiting for the explosion of jealousy. And maybe that’s part of what this is. He does like Buffy - he likes her a lot. She’s shining and good and sweet and kind and strong. But… that’s not everything that makes him hate Angel.But he’s not sure how to explain it. So, he decides to go for what Will’s expecting, instead. “I don't need to watch because I'm not threatened. Just gonna look this way.”And he does look away, angling himself so that he’s not watching them… but getting an eye full of where Jesse took his last stand, and his stomach starts to churn. That wasn’t very long ago. But things feel so different.“What's going on?” He asks, just to say something.“Nothin'...” Willow tells him, with a voice that implies that it’s very something, only she thinks he’s too delicate to know. And that might be a very good call. “Well, as long as they're not kissing.” Xander laughs, nervously, going for the joke. It doesn’t land. Willow just gives him a look, implying that he’s being just a little bit pathetic, and he wants to snap at her. But, he doesn’t. He just hops up from his seat and stretches. “Think I’m gonna call it a night, Will. You have fun with Buff if she ever circles back around.” Willow’s face falls. “Oh, but Xander, we were all gonna hang out!” “Yeah, but I’m figurin’ that’s canceled. Sides, mom’s been feeling like crap lately and you know Tony isn’t the brings-ya-soup-in-bed-type. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Tell Buffy I said ‘night.” “I will,” Willow promises, still looking after him with those dark, puppy dog eyes. Those things should be classified as a weapon. Xander forces himself to look away, pushing through the crowd and disappearing into it. All the things that he hadn’t said to Willow and Buffy are rattling around in his brain on the walk home. Stinging him like someone shoved a wasp’s nest into his brain. Over and over and over again. He knows what they think… and maybe they’re right, in some ways. He’s jealous. Angel is all tall and brooding and his face isn’t the worst to look at, even if he definitely styles his hair like a guy who hasn’t seen in a mirror in two hundred years, but that’s not IT. He’s angry for a lot of reasons. Feels like he could do a presentation board about it. “Evening, ladies and gents. Let’s take a seat and look at the facts, and I’m sure that when we’re done, you’ll hate Angel just as much as I do.” Fact number one: Angel is a vampire. Fangs, bumpy forehead, yellow eyes, blood-drinking, the whole enchilada. He’s dead and creepy and he’ll never be able to tan.Fact number two: Angel was just like the rest of the vampires, for a really long time. For longer than he was good. Xander snuck a peek at those diaries when Giles was preoccupied. He flipped through pages, saw graphic sketches, and read some things he wished he hadn’t. Angelus was quite the monster. Rape, murder, torture, pillaging. Well, okay, he doesn’t know that last part for sure, but it fits the theme. What penance undoes all of that? So, he has a soul. But it’s not like he deserved it. It’s not like he… Xander stops walking and leans against a streetlamp, miserable and lonely and aching all at once. Angel had lived for so long, done terrible things, and yet… here he was. All souled up and being dubbed a champion of the people for doing the bare minimum and not killing anything, recently. Jesse had only been a vampire for a night or two. Xander was pretty sure he hadn’t killed anyone in that time. Certainly hadn’t raped or tortured. He was just dead. That was his great crime against humanity. Someone murdered him, so they had to murder him again. What did he do that was so bad? Talk a big game? Jesse always did that. Always thought he was going to do more extreme things than he ever ended up doing. Why didn’t he get a soul? Why wasn’t that even an option? In all of Giles’ books, there’s no mention of that being possible? Or did it just not matter enough? He starts walking again, head bowed, thinking angrily. Fact number three: Angel was created by Darla. He’s a dick by association. He was made by the monster that made Jesse. Huh, maybe he was related to Jesse for a few seconds, there. He’s not sure how that kinda thing works. But it doesn’t matter. Angel was made by a monster, so he is a monster. Fact number four: Angel was a vampire the whole time. That means he was lying to Buffy, but it also means…Xander stops walking, again. It also means that when Buffy saw him, right before she dropped down into the underground of Sunnydale to hunt for Jesse, that Angel was a vampire then, too. He was strong, immortal, fangy… and he just stood there. He knew where Darla and her freaky friends were. He must’ve known that they took people down there. And he just let it happen. Didn’t try to stop them. And even if he hadn’t known that Jesse was down there, Buffy told him. And what did he say when Buffy asked him why he didn’t do it, himself? “I’m afraid.” Afraid of what? Darla? He’d been willing to stake her for Buffy. Afraid of the Master? They haven’t even seen that guy. Afraid of getting his hands dirty? He could have saved him. Could have saved Jesse, but he didn’t. He just let him die. Didn’t matter enough. Some fuckin’ champion of the people. What a great guy. Doesn’t kill, but doesn’t stop anyone else from doing it either. Xander storms forward again, furious and hurting. Screw that guy. As long as he lived - Xander would always know better about him. Know that deep down, underneath the “I’m-so-tortured” act, there’s something worse than a vicious and violent man. There’s an indifferent one, who didn’t care about the fate of a sixteen-year-old kid, because it didn’t mean anything to him, personally.And that's one grudge that Xander never does give up.